LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders will be sworn in as Arkansas’ 47th governor on Tuesday, assuming a seat her father once held and becoming the first woman to hold the post.
Sanders will take the oath of office in the state House of Representatives before delivering an address to a joint session of the Legislature. The 40-year-old Republican will afterward deliver her inaugural address on the steps of the state Capitol.
Sanders, who served nearly two years as White House press secretary, won the governor’s election last year after focusing heavily on national issues and her time working for former President Donald Trump. But she’s mostly avoided weighing in on the former president since the election and has said she wants to focus her attention on Arkansas.
Sanders will become the most well-known former Trump official in elected office. Her father, Mike Huckabee, served as Arkansas’ governor for more than a decade.
Arkansas lawmakers convened on Monday for the start of the annual legislative session. Sanders has said her top priority is education reform legislation that she says will include a focus on improving literacy, pay raises for teachers, school safety measures, and some form of using public money to pay for private schooling or homeschooling. She has also said she’d support legislation similar to a law in Florida that forbids instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.
Other items on Sanders’ legislative agenda include a push for cutting the state’s income tax and public safety measures. She takes office with the state sitting on more than $2 billion in reserves and with Republicans in the Legislature having expanded their supermajority in the November election.
Sanders is succeeding Asa Hutchinson, who is leaving office after eight years due to term limits. Hutchinson, a Republican, is considering running for president. He has said Trump winning the GOP nomination again would be the “worst scenario” for his party.
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“When you look to most of the members in terms of what they’re talking about, it really aligns with what the governor-elect talks about,” House Speaker Matthew Shepherd told reporters.
Sanders has said she wants the education legislation approved first. Sanders has also said she wants to begin phasing out the state’s income tax and a public safety plan that includes a new prison.
Legislative leaders said they expected to take up any tax cuts toward the end of the session.
Arkansas’ revenue has been coming in higher than expected, and the state is sitting on more than $2 billion in reserves. The head of the Senate panel that will take up any cuts said the proposals should be considered after lawmakers take up the education and public safety plans.
“We have to get a good handle on it,” Republican Sen. Jimmy Hickey, who chairs the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee, said.
Democrats saw their ranks shrink in the Legislature in November after the predominantly Republican state shifted further right. The GOP holds 82 seats in the 100-member House and 29 seats in the 35-member Senate.
Democratic Sen. Greg Leding, the Senate’s minority leader, said some areas where his party can find agreement with Sanders include the teacher pay raises she said she wants in the education overhaul. Democrats are concerned about other initiatives, including proposals to allow public funds to pay for private schooling and homeschooling.
But Leding acknowledged that Democrats are “clear-eyed about the political reality of the moment.”
Arkansas lawmakers are also expected to take up abortion legislation, though the procedure is banned in the state. The state’s ban took effect when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade last year.
One proposal would require companies that pay for employees’ abortions or abortion-related travel to also provide 16 weeks of maternity leave for employees who are state residents. Democrats have said they also want to add rape and incest exemptions to Arkansas’ ban, which permits abortion only to save the mother’s life.
The Legislature also may join other GOP states in taking up efforts to restrict drag shows, which have been targeted by right-wing activists and politicians around the U.S. A bill filed Monday would ban drag performances from public property and would classify businesses that show them as adult-oriented businesses.
The Associated Press
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